In a recent report, the US Forbes biweekly website listed five technology trends in the field of healthcare in 2022: Areas such as telemedicine, personalized medicine, genomics and wearables will experience rapid growth, and industry players will further leverage technologies such as artificial intelligence (AI), cloud computing, extended reality and the Internet of Things (IoT) to develop and deliver new and better therapies and services.

Wearable devices help with telemedicine

According to analysts at Deloitte, the proportion of telemedicine consultations jumped from 0.1 per cent to 43.5 per cent in the first few months of the coronavirus outbreak, and it's easy to see why - the trend is expected to give more patients a chance at saving lives.

To achieve this, a new generation of wearable devices equipped with heart rate, pressure and blood oxygen detectors allows doctors to accurately monitor patients' vital signs in real time. During the pandemic, some places have set up "virtual hospital rooms" where doctors use a central communications infrastructure to monitor the treatment of patients in multiple locations, and the Pennsylvania Emergency Medicine Center in the United States is developing a more advanced version of "virtual emergency rooms."

In 2022, the telemedicine approach will expand to other areas, such as improving patients' mental health and providing continuous follow-up care for patients undergoing surgery and critical rehabilitation. Robots and the Internet of Things will play a big role in this trend, for example, smart technology (machine learning) will alert professionals when sensors detect the need for intervention or cameras spot an elderly person falling at home.

Extended reality is used in clinical training and therapy

Virtual reality (VR) headsets are already being used to train doctors to understand how the human body works. VR is also being used in therapy, for example to train autistic children to gain social and life skills; It has also been used to promote cognitive behavioral therapy to help treat chronic pain, anxiety and even schizophrenia. Vr-based therapies have been developed to allow patients to overcome fears and treat psychosis in a safe, non-threatening environment.

In 2022, the application of augmented reality technology in the medical field will also continue to grow. Products such as AccuVein's are designed to make it easier for doctors and nurses to locate the vein when an injection is needed, by detecting the heat signature of the blood flow and highlighting it on the patient's arm. Microsoft's hololens system is used in surgical operating rooms, where surgeons receive real-time information about what they see and share their views with other professionals or students who may be observing the surgery.

Use AI and machine learning to understand medical data

As in other industries, an important role for AI in healthcare involves making sense of large amounts of messy, unstructured data. These include data from X-rays, CT and MRI scans, data on the distribution of vaccines for COVID-19 and other infectious diseases, data on the genomes of living cells, and even handwritten notes from doctors.

AI can also be a good helper for doctors and improve their job skills. For example, AI can make simple contact and triage of patients, so that clinicians can free up time for more valuable work. Telemedicine provider Babylon Health uses artificial intelligence chatbots to gather information about patients' symptoms through natural language processing and consult directly with the appropriate medical professional.

Artificial intelligence will have a profound impact on the field of preventive medicine in the coming years. Preventive medicine does not respond to disease by providing treatment after the fact, but rather predicts when and where disease will occur and develops solutions before it does. This includes predicting the location of infectious disease outbreaks, the readmission rate of patients, and lifestyle factors such as diet, exercise, and sports. These tools are able to spot patterns in large data sets more effectively than traditional analytical processes, allowing for more accurate predictions and ultimately improved outcomes.

"Digital twins" replace animal testing

A "digital twin" is currently emerging in a number of fields, and a "digital twin" refers to the creation of a digital model based on data obtained from the real world that can be used to simulate any system or process.

In healthcare, this trend includes digital simulations of "virtual patients" - those who test drugs and treatments, with the aim of shortening the time it takes for new drugs to move from the design stage to the generic stage.

As it stands now, the "digital twin" of human organs and systems is closer to reality, allowing doctors to explore the causes of diseases in different organs and conduct treatment trials without the need for expensive human or animal testing. The Living Heart project, launched in the United States in 2014, aims to create an open-source "digital twin" of the human heart; Similar "neurotwin" projects in the European Union mimic the interaction of electric fields in the brain, hoping to lead to new treatments for Alzheimer's disease.

Personalized medicine and Genomics

Modern medical technologies, including genomics, AI and "digital twins," will allow doctors to take a more personalized approach, tailoring treatments to patients' individual circumstances.

For example, the Empa Medical Center in Sweden uses AI and modeling software to predict the exact dosage of painkillers for individual patients. For patients with chronic pain, the right amount of medication can be effective and improve their quality of life, but in high doses, it can be extremely dangerous.

Novo Nordisk has partnered with digital health company Glooko to create a personalized diabetes monitoring tool that can give patients personalized recommendations on things like diet, exercise and disease management based on their blood sugar readings and other specific factors.

Genomics, the study of genes and the use of technology to map an individual's genome, is particularly useful for personalised medicine and could lead to new treatments for diseases such as cancer, arthritis and Alzheimer's.